


Hope Vs. Experience - Wherever They may Lead Us

by ThatwasJustaDream



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, M/M, Recovery, with some pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 04:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17053430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatwasJustaDream/pseuds/ThatwasJustaDream
Summary: Experience and fresh emotional bruising have taught Harvey not to entertain ‘Hope’ too much where Mike Ross is concerned. But when illness lands him hard on his ass, Mike is back; and Harvey can’t ignore the feeling of it knocking, asking him to let it in just once more.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShaunHastings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShaunHastings/gifts).



> Warnings: Brief, mild description of a patient in a hospital ICU under treatment. Nothing too awful, but if you have a hospital/health/surgical procedure squick, be aware.

**Friday**

Harvey Specter had entered the post-Mike Ross phase of his career with no illusions about it: How often he may be tempted to murder Louis Litt. He knew the number would come damn close to double digits per week. He hadn't expected those feelings to drag him around by the collar for months, though, nor could he have foreseen all the reasons they would bubble up.

Especially this one; Louis acting like a goddamned mother hen.

"Will you get... the hell off of me? For cripe's sake, Louis..."

"Harvey, stop.. this...unggh...this is for your own good. I'm doing this... for the ...ahhhh.....for the firm."

Harvey stopped fighting his colleague-turned-octopus: Louis standing behind Harvey's office chair, pining him to it with both arms - one of them half over Harvey's face pressing a children's forehead thermometer film to, well, Harvey's forehead.

Technically, he could have managed to throw Louis off of him, but it would have taken enough effort and propulsive force in directions he wasn't facing to maybe land them both on the floor in an ungraceful heap. Harvey wasn't chancing that anyone might not get an iPhone snap of that. 

Plus, if he was honest with himself, he didn't physically have it in him.

"When did I miss you transforming into Clara Barton, Louis? Come to think of it, with that sour puss? You kinda look like her. Any relation?"

"One oh one point five," Louis ignored him, stepping to one side of the chair and back where at least Harvey could keep a leery eye on him, thank God.

"One oh...what?"

"You've got a one hundred and one degree fever, Harvey. You're going to the doctor right now, if I have to drive you there myself."

"It's nothing," Harvey gave him what he hoped was his best dismissive sneer, despite some surprise at the test result. "I run warm. Not all of us have reptilian blood running through us, buddy."

"You. Have. Pneumonia," Louis got in his face, waggling the plastic like it was an exhibit he wanted firmly planted in the jurors' memories. 

"Bronchitis," Harvey countered. "I know, because an actual doctor told me so."

"Well you need a new doctor, then. Dry cough, fever, visible malaise...."

"If I've got malaise it's about you hovering. You hovering is enough to make anyone sick."

It took a little more time and a lot more verbal acid to force Louis to beat a retreat. But Harvey couldn't help noticing him glaring disapprovingly through the glass of his office on the way to and fro that the rest of the day. 

At least he left him the hell alone. 

 

-*-

It had to be after eleven p.m.; Harvey wasn't sure, except he knew his own living room and how it looked all hours of the evening and overnight- the angle and degree of moonlight through the wall of windows, the deeper dark that felt like many people in the buildings nearby had turned in. 

He would have looked to his wall clock, but he couldn't move; felt heavy as a rock, even his eyelids, and was burning up. The vague body aches from earlier weren't vague anymore; were a web of pulsing, randomly rising and falling misery.

"I already called them...." He heard the voice that had pulled him to wavering awareness: Donna perched on the edge of the sofa next to him, one hand with a phone to her ear, the other arm wrapped around her waist like a gesture of self-comforting. "Will you meet us there? I don't want to wait alone. I'm a little freaked out, he's... it's beyond ‘he can't wake up...’”

She must have ignored his earlier orders not to baby him like Louis had: clearly dropped in on the way home from a date to check on him wearing a teal, taffeta ball gown with a beaded bodice, a silky black shrug over her shoulders. She looked luminous and he wanted to tell her so, how beautiful she looked, glowing, really, wanted to tell her to call off the damn ambulance and maybe get him some water... tried to sit up to ask her for some, please, and...

....realized he couldn't. Sit up. Could barely form a coherent word or three, and none that went together. Meanwhile, everything in the room was glowing- the fireplace overly brilliant, every single thing around them including the sofa gently undulating and vibrating in time with the hurt that was throwing a party in his back, his shoulders, his lungs...

Frigging hallucinating. Oxygen deprivation; his lungs not pulling their weight.

"I think we should wait...." Donna was saying to Louis, presumably. "...until there's more we can tell him. I've gotta go, now; they're in the hall... okay...yes...."

A strong, metallic rattle in the hallway; a gurney being carried, clamps tapping against rails, voices at the door and then in his foyer, Donna gone from his side...

Harvey tried again to move, to maybe sit up enough to ask them all to turn off the fireplace and lock the patio door on the way out, but the effort expended turned the pain in his chest into a dagger piercing the tissue of his left lung. 

The shout that came out of him...long and ragged... the dejected groan that followed it, that didn't even sound like his own voice would have been so deeply humiliating, if he'd had room to feel anything else but the pain.

Thankfully, the room started pixelating. He was passing out, and he was so fine with that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Saturday Night**

Mike Ross shifted in the poor excuse for a mock-leather adjustable chair; sat back and then forward again, grateful an orderly had been good enough to move one in here for him, but wishing for something newer than a rickety tan bag of furniture bones. 

He could be sitting here a while - hell, sleeping here a while: Harvey hadn't moved once in the four hours since Mike had finally been granted access to his curtained off area of the ICU. 

He'd had to fight to get in. Marcus, Harvey's only emergency contact, was with the family in Europe for the week and the hospital was less than cooperative. Louis fumed and threatened, Donna was near tears that held no trace of alligator in them - but it was finally Mike who sweet-talked his way in with earnest, begging eyes and the very logical argument that maybe, just maybe the voice of someone he cared about would help bring Harvey to again.

"I nearly had a heart attack when they pulled back that drape," Mike told him, leaning even more forward, arms resting on the bedrail next to Harvey's pale, still form. "You look like shit. And I say that with zero degree of exaggeration or remorse, 'cause someone's gotta tell you."

At least most of the wires and tubes he'd seen looked familiar; oxygen cannula in one nostril, wires taped to Harvey's back and upper chest monitoring at least five different things from the looks of all those screens, an IV drip with a large bag of antibiotics that had already been changed once since he'd arrived. 

But it was the tube threading through an incision and directly into Harvey's chest that had made Mike rock back on his heels and look away; the realization things were bad enough they had to drain his lungs. Then came an onslaught of bad news from the doctor: Pleural effusion, possible perforation in one lung, a bacterial infection that took advantage of his weakened state to go romp around his bloodstream.

"Is that.... does that mean he has sepsis?" Mike heard the shake in his own voice.

No, the doctor said, and Mike could breathe again. They were working hard to try to keep it that way, but there were no promises. 

"Jesus, Harvey, I wonder... I wonder if you're even going to be happy to see me here when you wake up?" Mike gave in to the urge to reach into the bed and take his hand, to squeeze it. "I hear it in your voice, you know? When we talk on the phone... I get how pissed you still are we left. I know you've been sugar coating what it's like here, too. You have to wake up, so I can tell you that I'm sorry. A big part of me is so fucking sorry I did it. You have to get better...so you can laugh and say 'tough luck, you stupid bastard...you had it all, no one made you throw it away.'"

Mike stroked the back of Harvey's hand with his thumb: Wished for him to rouse suddenly and shake him off, for Harvey to snark at him, tell him he was fine, dammit, and to stop emoting like a thirteen year old.

But...nothing. 

Mike did what he could; babbled about nothing much for a couple of hours and hoped some of it got through. Then he curled up as much as the rickety chair allowed, to get some sleep.

 

**Monday Morning**

To Harvey, surfacing from the worst of his ordeal felt less like a slow swim upward and more like a cork popping from a bottle. Out of nowhere there were Green-white hospital lights in his eyes, monitors beeping, the endless hum of voices in the hall that had been running through his dream state these last...what? Hours? Days?

He turned his head one way - just a wall and a window with not much of a view. Grey, scudding clouds, greyer buildings, and a low table holding some vases of flowers. He turned the other way to look for the door to the hall, praying to God they'd put him in a private room: If there was some other poor fucker suffering loudly next to him, he was getting up and walking the hell home.

Mike. 

Harvey blinked; leaned up slightly to get a better look at him. Mike stretched out on his back, the recliner pushed as close to flat as it would go; socked feet sticking out the bottom of a thin hospital blanket. He had one sweatshirt-covered arm up over his head, shielding his eyes from the light.

The pull of surgical staples on his chest made Harvey lay back fast, but even hurting and drained he couldn't help but admire it: How frigging edible Mike looked in his sleep - lips softly slack, stubble on his chin and cheeks, body loose and warm under the blanket. 

Harvey would kill - or at least maim - for a large mattress in the room. For the chance to pull him in close, get an arm around him and spoon Mike, to feel him sigh and relax against him. To smell Mike's hair under his nose and kiss his ear; to feel Mike’s soft exhalations as he slept.

He wondered if Mike would have any clue what was running through his head. He must have known, all this time. It felt like he did, sometimes, the looks Harvey got back from him.

"Welcome to Saint Luke's," A nurse's voice - his monitors must have alerted the staff to his changing vitals. "How are you feeling?"

She'd brought a cup with ice chips, and Harvey took them gratefully; didn't bother to watch her observing him, taking in his state of alertness and making notes on a clipboard. 

"Feel like I've had the shit kicked out of me - a couple of times," It came out deeply scratchy; probably a breathing tube had been part of the deal at some point. "Can you leave me alone? For a while?"

"They weren't kidding. You are pushy," she walked around back toward the side of the bed Mike was on in some hopes of getting Harvey's attention again, still making notes. "And stubborn. You almost stubborned yourself to death, if you haven't already figured that out."

"Yeah," Harvey said it low, willing her to talk more softly, to not wake him. "Listen, I'll gladly see the doctor, I'll do whatever you all recommend, but...can you give us a few minutes?"

She did better than that: Harvey got half an hour of relative peace and quiet; spent it sucking on ice chips and watching Mike sleep. The last few ice cubes collapsed against each other in the cup when he set it down, and that's what did it; Mike stretched and turned at the sound, twisted one way then the other. He sat up, still half asleep, looking almost comically confused. 

Then the smile turned soft and fond and squinty when he saw Harvey was clearly wide awake. 

"Hi," Mike said.

The sound of it- hearing his voice again, just that one word- made Harvey's heart pound. 

"Hiya, buddy," Harvey rasped. 

**Thursday**

"It feels so strange," Harvey turned the key and pushed the door open. "Walking into your own place....when the last time you left, you left horizontally."

It went without saying that it also felt fantastic: Wearing his own slacks and a cashmere sweater, soft silk button-down under it, seeing his stuff, his city view, his bedroom. Even if he was still drained to the point of exhaustion, they were all things of beauty.

"Yeah, well... may you never experience it again," Mike, his other thing of beauty, was right behind him, hands full with several shopping bags worth of 'stuff' - paperwork from the hospital, instructions and discharge papers, planters with potted flowers that Jessica and other colleagues and clients had sent. "Although, it sure beats the alternative: Not coming home again."

Harvey had argued against Mike staying with him for a few days: Not because he didn't want that, but because it wouldn't be enough. Three days, a week...however much time Mike carved out for him, it could only be too much and not enough. 

Mike countered with logical arguments, and a deeply pissed off frown that made Harvey chuckle under his breath at him, shaking his head in surrender.

"You're barely able to stand on your own two feet, Harvey. What if you need something in the middle of the night? Who do you want helping you, making your meals, picking up behind you? Me ... or some stranger in a uniform?"

He'd held back a snappy retort about the better service he might get from a pro; instead went with a shoulder squeeze and a softly said 'thank you.'

Mike had looked mollified and something else. Surprised? 

Was he that much of a hard ass, sometimes?

 

-*-

"Soup's on," Mike called from the doorway. 

Harvey had given in to the urge to rest almost the moment they walked in; set his shoes in the closet, changed to sweats and a tee, and after eyeing the bed and debating his next move pulled down the sheets and crawled gratefully in.

He could hear and smell Mike going into food prep mode the minute he did; thought about telling to him to just order out, instead, but then the memories of three days of hospital gelatin and horrific chipped beef on toast in gravy made him think better of it.

Apparently someone had shopped for Mike while he stayed by Harvey, because soon the place was filled with the scents of baking bread dough and chicken stock, vegetables boiling in the stock, chicken thighs broiling. 

He supposed he had Rachel to thank for it, Mike having a clue how to fix a meal on that scale. 

Funny, that. 

Harvey had to work to sit up; to find an angle that didn't make the stitches in his chest scream or his bed-weary body object. He put a hand up to stop Mike when Mike walked his way. Then he gave in and let him help him to his feet - let Mike be someone to lean on.

"I'm impressed," he sat at the table, now, nodding at the fragrant, steaming plates and bowls filled with chicken and rice, veggie soup, hot rolls sliced open and slathered in butter. "I hope I can do this justice."

"I know it's a lot, but I figured the leftover chicken will be sandwiches tomorrow. The soup...there's enough for a couple of days, and I can make more before I go. I'll get some pots of chili and stew stocked up, so you don't have to do any...."

"You've done enough," Harvey could have kicked himself the second he said it, though it was said with some warmth and not dismissively. "I mean.... it's been a week, and you've barely gotten outdoors. You must be going stir crazy." 

"Four and a half days, not a week," Mike dug in, clearly the more famished of them, and comfortable enough with him to talk around bites of food. "And I did get out, while you were still under on Sunday... Monday.. I hit the park. Rented one of those Citi Bikes."

"How was it?"

"Awful. Heavy, not remotely close to being well-tuned. They're ...pretty basic, right? But it was a bike. Forward motion felt good."

Harvey did his best to enjoy the food; watched him eat, and let Mike lead the small talk. But sooner than he would have liked, it was time to not be sitting at a table. 

"If you want to crash, I'll understand," Mike started gathering up their dishes. "I could spend some time on my laptop, check in on things at work."

"I thought... maybe a movie?" Harvey nodded toward the living room. "I could use a couple of hours that don't feel like a sick day. Something closer to normal."

"Sounds great," Mike said.

Harvey tried to help with picking up, but Mike shooed him away with a wave toward the living room, so he settled in at one end of the sofa and dialed up the options on pay-per-view. 

"Any preference?" Harvey asked him, still randomly flicking through menus when Mike joined him. 

"Nah..." Mike dropped down a the other end of the couch with computer in hand, patting on the sofa in a wordless gesture that said Harvey should stretch out, there was room for him to do so. "Just...pick the first thing that looks good."

It turned out to be a bit of a waste of $4.95: Mike was absorbed in email, and Harvey felt his eyes sliding shut half an hour into it. Still, it felt good to drift that way - head on a sofa pillow, the volume low and the fireplace on high, the tick tap of Mike keyboarding next to him.

Harvey heard a deep and contented sigh as he was sliding deeper into sleep, and it took a second to realize it was coming from Mike and not him. He forced his eyes open enough to see Mike giving up on the work effort, closing his laptop and setting it on the table. 

Mike must have felt himself being watched as he slid back, feet finding the coffee table right next to it, pulling the other sofa pillow on his lap to watch what was left of the movie; he turned to look at Harvey in the dark, and there was that soft smile again - Mike's most unguarded heart-eyes, a sight Harvey hadn't dreamed he'd be seeing again anytime so soon. 

"You scared the hell out of me," Mike said. "You know that, right?" 

"Yes," Harvey said. "I'm sorry. I apologize for catching an airborne virus I didn't want and couldn't avoid because half the idiots in this city are too stupid to cover their mouths when they sneeze."

"It might not have come to such a horrible head if you'd gotten help sooner, though."

"I hear you."

"You have to take better care, Harvey. You can't walk around thinking you're invincible. Consider what losing you would do to the firm, to the people who care about you, maybe and...."

Mike was really winding up for a considered and thorough lecture, and Harvey wanted to savor it all, really he did, but sleep was insistent. He vaguely remembered silence falling when the set was switched off, the sensation of Mike dropping a blanket over him from foot to shoulder. 

He'd have sworn, later, that there had also been a light trace of fingertips over his cheek and the press of lips against his forehead, but....he must have been dreaming by then.

 

**Saturday**

Only those not paying close attention would think Harvey was actually obtuse. He got most everything that happened around him, to him, etcetera... he just didn't let most of it rattle him the way some people did.

He even got the things that were going on inside him, these days, thanks to more than a few therapeutic sessions. So when he woke up Friday feeling both physically stronger and emotionally much, much crankier, he knew.

It was impending-separation anxiety.

"Shit," he rolled out of bed, thankful that it no longer hurt to do so; that his feet landed without forethought and his thighs lifted him up without need for planning or caution. "Fuck, fuck, fuck...."

He showered and pulled on a Henley and plaid lounge pants, then headed for the kitchen. It was cool and quiet in the room, barely eight a.m., Mike still asleep, apparently, from the lack of movement from the direction of the guest suite. 

Harvey cracked eggs, mixed in milk and brown sugar, started the coffee he knew would register with his boy's brain and get that lovely ass moving. He went to the media center and turned some jazz on at very low volume; was back at the stove heating a griddle, pulling out bread for the French toast when he heard just it - shower taps from Mike's direction indicating he'd be out soon.

"Holy crap, that smells good," Mike was running a hand through his still-wet hair when he joined Harvey, yawning wide, dropping into a dining chair in pajama shorts and an old, well-loved sweatshirt. "You have maple syrup for those?"

"Of course, I do," Harvey smiled at Mike’s happy groan in response to the good news.

"You look like you feel a lot better," Mike was up on his feet; went to get the bottle of syrup. "You're … glowing, and pink cheeked. Not grey and pinched anymore."

"Yes. My body, happily, can heal. Whereas you will always be pasty, gangly and the Most Awkward Potato and there's really not much you can do about it."

"Niiiice," Mike both acknowledged and dismissed the jab; poured them each coffees while Harvey flipped their breakfast and got it ready for the plates. "So what are we doing today? Head out for a walk, get you some outdoor time?"

"I'm going to call the building and add on some extra maid service for a while. Then I'm going to order meal deliveries online. You're going to go pack...and get yourself a plane ticket home."

Well, that did it. Silence. Not what he'd expected: Harvey had expected a fight. 

Mike was looking deflated and morose, though, when he joined him at the table, and Harvey felt guilty for dropping it on him like that. 

"Mike, look...."

"No, it's okay. I get it. If you're feeling this much better, and I stay...then what are we doing? Playing house?"

"Baby, if we were playing house... you'd know it," Harvey waved his fork at Mike; generally and behind him, toward the far end of the apartment. "And you sure as hell wouldn't be sleeping in the guest room."

"Harvey, I think I made a mistake."

Another hard stop he hadn't seen coming; Harvey had begun sipping his coffee, and nearly spilled some of it setting it down.

"What do you mean?"

"These past few days... they've felt more like home to me than any one of them has in Seattle. Everything is different: The city, the lifestyle, the...clients. They don't appreciate it. I do and I do, but it seems to mean nothing to them."

"Huh. And yet...you couldn't get out of here fast enough. You left in such a hurry, you put down tire tracks on Fifth Avenue."

"Harvey, don't. Please. I know I hurt you and ...you're still pissed, but please. Don't. It's been...awful."

"I'm sorry," Mike looked so close to tears, that it wasn't hard to say it and mean it. "I think...maybe you have to give it time. It hasn't even been ten months yet, and..."

"Even...Rachel. Even she feels...so different."

"Wait; what does that mean?"

"The way she acts toward me lately, it's like she did when we first met. When she would reel me in then throw me overboard again and again and...."

"Have you asked her about it?"

"Asked? Hell, yeah. I asked…then I demanded a reason why. We argue...so much."

"Look, I told you this from the get-go, and it hasn't changed: I suck at this stuff," Harvey watched Mike roll his eyes and look away. "I don't know what the answer is for you, but it seems to me.... you have to give it some time. Don't let anyone walk all over you, no, but if everyone who was a little homesick bailed...."

"Moving companies would make a fortune," Mike acknowledged. "And divorce lawyers, too."

Harvey would have been lying if he said the word didn't make him ...feel something. 

He smothered it, though; silently watched Mike attacking the food on his plate, fork hacking at the bread with a little too much enthusiasm, his heart hurting for him.

"I could come out for a visit, if it would help," Harvey offered. "I'm sure Donna will want to go see Rachel. Maybe with a little more back and forth...."

"Look at us: I'm supposed to be here to care for you, Harvey. You're not even half healed and I'm already leaning on you. I'm sorry I dumped that load of TMI."

"Don't be. I miss the days when we took care of each other."

"Yes," Mike shrugged. "But they were pretty few and far between sometimes, weren't they?"

"Oh... so we're being honest?"

"Nah. I'm just being pissy because you're kicking me out."

And so it was that they spent the next few hours in nothing more than light banter and planning-mode; Harvey only dressing in street clothes at the last minute to walk Mike to the curb when his ride to the airport arrived.

"I could come with you to the gate,” Harvey offered, though it was looking like rain and he felt tired just from the walk downstairs. 

"That'd make... no sense. You need another week of rest, all right? Promise, before you go back to work, you'll take at least a week?"

"I will try. If I start losing my mind, maybe I'll go in and catch up a little. But I will try."

Then Mike was lowering his arm, the cab pulling up; there was a quick flurry of getting the bag in the trunk and watching for traffic, opening the side door.

"Hey," Harvey got an arm around him, to give him a clap on the back before Mike dropped in to the back seat. "Thank you."

"Are you kidding?" Mike was back to standing fully up, turning toward him and leaning in for a full hug; said the rest of the words by Harvey's ear. "Any time. I mean it. I'm just so frigging relieved you're okay, but.. if you need me... I'll be here."

And then, no question this time, no sleepy confusion; Mike planted a kiss by his ear as they moved away from each other - soft and quick, but with intent. 

He winked at Harvey, who felt glued in place. Then he slid in the cab - and was gone. 

Harvey watched 'til the vehicle was lost in the flow of traffic, then walked back up to his apartment - the happy-sad of having him and losing him again hitting him full force. And he had plenty of time on his own to let it wash through him.

Dammit.


	3. Chapter 3

If there were no other signs he was both healed and overdoing it again, there was this: It was two a.m. and Harvey was only now walking out of the lobby, headed toward the short line of black cars awaiting fares.

Echoes of the old days; his first years at the firm when he was endlessly busting his hump to prove he deserved it all. Hadn’t he come so very far?

“Drive down around the seaport,” Harvey instructed the guy. “Take me back up the FDR and cut over at 98th.”

If the driver was annoyed at going about ten miles out of their way, he didn’t show it. Harvey figured he had a regular supply of clients who wanted somewhere more private to make a call than even their own offices. Plus, he wanted to watch the city sail by; blue-grey under a full moon, the water pure silver, apartment and office buildings in blackest silhouette with the occasional light in every tenth window. 

He needed a reminder of what he was working so hard to stay on top of.

That wasn’t lost on him, either, that sometimes lately he wasn’t sure why the hell he was….

“Hel…luhhh..ooOoo?”

Him at the other end of the line, once the car was rolling and the privacy screen up; Mike’s voice a specific kind of loose and scratchy like his vocal cords were many steps behind his brain. Harvey both smiled and flinched; biting his lip and shifting in his seat at the warm, sleepy sound and what it was making him feel. 

“Fuck. Sorry, I shouldn’t have…. you were really out.”

Very odd. 

“I uh… sorrrrry, I …”

“I can call you later, I’m…”

“No, mmmNnnn…no, don’t… don’t hang up,” Mike said.

Harvey heard the rustling of heavy covers, a thunk of a headboard. 

It must be cold, there. November. Late fall in Seattle would be a whole different thing than autumn in Manhattan. 

“Buddy, what the hell are you doing asleep before midnight?”

“What are you doing outdoors right now? Did your latest tall drink of water kick you out of bed?”

It made him flinch, for a second, hearing that. But there was a comforting tinge of inquiry in Mike's tone, so... maybe it was more about tenuous probing than friendly ribbing?

“As if. You know I’m the one who walks.”

“Funny, I seem to remember more than one person handing you back your dance card.” 

Mike apparently couldn’t resist calling bullshit, and why did that irk, too? Oh, right: Because Harvey still wanted him like oxygen, and would never have him - not now, not ever as far as he could figure. 

“I’m stuck on a case that’ll go south fast if I don’t ride every detail myself,” Harvey flicked the switch to roll the window up a little more, to cut the breeze turning to a dull roar inside the car now that they were out of midtown. “I’m only just going home for the night. Technically …for the morning, I guess.”

“Wow. So…tell me,” Mike still sounded raspy, but more ‘there.’ “What’s it about?”

“Don’t worry about it; not why I called. I thought you’d be awake, we could catch up.”

"So... how are you? How are you feeling?"

"Much better. I'd love to say I'm all the way back but…not yet. Maybe ninety percent."

"I'm glad to hear that, Harvey. Keep working on the other ten percent, so I can stop worrying about you. Okay?"

Harvey had been the one to phone him more often at first - both right after the move, and since his health crisis - only to find listening to the details of Mike and Rachel’s new lives off-putting if he was honest about it. Every time he'd rein in the urge to call, he found that Mike texted him more- but lately even that had tapered off.

Harvey couldn't help noticing; it was right about the time he'd stopped holding out hope.

“I was asleep 'cause I've been rolling out at dawn,” Mike explained, now. “Get a head start on the day, put a few miles on my bike before work or I never seem to get to it at all, now. Work… it’s just endless.”

“And Rachel? I’m not waking her up, too, am I?”

“No, she’s… at a client thing. I think.”

Why? Why did it make his heart rise, picturing Mike alone in bed and not with her. Was he twelve?

It did, though. Lighten his mood. 

“And you’re not at the client thing, because…” 

Silence for so long after that Harvey actually wondered if Mike had fallen back to sleep. Followed by words that made him jump in his seat.

“I think… Harvey, I think she’s seeing someone.”

Fourteen months. Holy shit. 

He’d known Mike would face this, someday. Of course she would do that to him because she’d pretty much done it before - emotional cheating, at least. He thought it might take five or seven years, but… fourteen months?

“Why do you think so?”

It seemed the best, least hurtful way to advance the conversation. 

“I don’t know, except ...it's like I told you: There’s something kind of aloof and...hard about her. There's a pattern of things she says and things she’s really vague about. There are significant amounts of time that aren’t… I don’t know… they feel like blanks in our life and I’m filling those blanks in with the worst possible scenarios. Does it sound like I’m being paranoid?”

“It does not,” Harvey said. “It rings … bells. Have you asked her? Outright?”

“No.”

“Why not?

“Because if I’m right… I don’t know if I have it in me. To try again. I don’t think I do.”

“Come home. To New York. If it’s true…”

Enough staying out of it; if Mike was right about this? Enough.

“Harvey…”

“You need to know it’s an option. That’s all I'm saying. You can come back."

"Things change. Do you really think I could, I don't know, ever fit in again?"

"I don't think, I know. Yes, we've all shifted roles and we're feeling our way through things with Jessica gone, but..."

"Why would Robert even consider me, if....."

"If you're right... he won't have any reason to bitch. And you know what? He's practical enough to want you back if that's the case."

"Maybe. Who knows? It makes me feel awful, saying shit like this out loud. What if I'm wrong?"

"Ask her."

"Yeah. I have to."

"You know you do. Pull off the bandage, one fast tug. Ask her."

It sure as hell wasn't what Harvey had expected when he called him: Walking around his apartment until three a.m., picturing Mike at sitting at the dining table, in the kitchen cooking, stretched out on his living room chair. 

Imagining Mike waking up bleary-eyed and smiling softly in Harvey's bed, and that was the worst of it. The call, it made Harvey feel a dangerous degree of...what?

Hope. 

Harvey knew where hope all too often led.

-*-

Mike texted him three days later, very early for Seattle: Harvey got the message on his way to court, pictured Mike putting away his bike and getting ready for work after hitting 'send.'

'We're going to try. We're seeing a couples counselor.'

That was it: No word if his hunch had been right or wrong, though Harvey knew without being told. 

"Dammit," he put the phone away in his pocket. 

Enough. 

Mike had been right: It was time Harvey took care of himself. 

He cleared his book of client meetings for some time outward - and hired a property manager find him a place in Maui for a month. 

Enough of all of this.


	4. Chapter 4

When his month off was almost up, Harvey took another. The workaholic in him rioted at that development; wanted the rest of the fiber of his being to panic, too, but the rest of his being told it to go get bent.

"Are you surfing?" Louis asked him in his slightly breathless, 'living vicariously through you' tone when he called to check in. "Charging waves, shredding the surf like a kahuna?"

"Are you nuts? I box, I run... I don't swim. Not that well. I am paddle boarding, though. Upright. Small waves. They're hypnotic."

"You sound pretty Zen, Harvey. Not gonna retire on us, are you?"

"I think I'm a little too young for that, don't you?"

There were moments the idea teased at his brain - until week seven, when he knew it was time; when even the bits of him barely recovered from illness and the loss of hope of having Mike back in his life were starting to once again itch for a fight. 

As if he was really going to let some up-and-coming punk own corporate law in his city?

Enough rest: It was time to do battle again.

-*-

"Look at yooouuu!" Donna, nearly squealing with happiness, marched up fast in her highest heels to intercept him on the sidewalk his first day back. "You are... ridiculously tan."

"Thank you... I think?" He returned her hug hello, the two of them heading for the glass doors of their office tower together. "Miss me?"

"You called in so much last week, I feel like you've been back already. But of course, we all missed you. Awful news about Rachel and Mike, no?"

Just like that: Bam. Not even in his office, yet, and bam. It felt like the ground fell out from under them a little, felt like that moment of disorientation waking up in the hospital had, until Harvey caught himself. 

"What...about Mike and Rachel?"

"I thought you must know. She said that after he came back from 'playing nursemaid,' her words not mine, it was pretty much over for them. She thought... she thought maybe something had happened between you two?"

"Donna, you know better. You know I'd never..."

"I do. I think...sometimes people who feel guilty accuse others of exactly what they're beating themselves up over."

Well, there it was. 

"That has to be hard for you," he hit the elevator button, keeping his voice low in deference to the busy lobby. "…being her friend."

"It is, but... I think the best thing I can do is keep out of it. Not take sides. Don't you?"

"I think she's lucky to have you," he said the most neutral thing his brain could come up with on no notice. "Has anyone talked with Mike?"

"Okay... now I'm really confused," she said, eyes going between him and her bag as she fished out her desk keys. "You can't really be that out of the loop, can you? I know Hawaii is a lonnnng way away, but they have wifi, Harvey. They have phones and Internet and...."

"Donna, what are you talki...."

"Mike's here, Harvey. He's back in his old office. He interviewed Monday for the open position and Robert hired him Tuesday. I thought sure there would be fireworks when Mike showed up out of nowhere to meet with him, but it wasn't like that at all. Louis bitched and moaned, but we all know he's really happy about it. And everyone assumed you'd already voted yes, I guess..."

They felt like an hour- the seconds it took for that elevator to hit their floor and open. Harvey tried not to show it; tried to make polite sounds and nod in the right spots as Donna talked, as he excused himself and headed for Mike's office.

_‘Walk, don't run. Walk....’_

He managed it, barely; rounded the corner to see Mike behind his desk, hanging up the phone, turning his way as Harvey walked in.

"Jeesus, Harvey, look at you," Mike drawled it- eyes sparkling, dancing, and it felt so good to see him looking so ...light; not weighed down by worry about Harvey's health or his own life decisions. "You're like a frigging movie star with that tan."

"A compliment, unbidden?" Harvey could barely pull off any brusque or any swagger, though; felt how wide his smile was, heard the vein of emotion in his own voice. "What's gotten into you?"

"Hope," Mike said, getting up and walking his way. ".... that maybe you're right; that it's not too late to come back. That it's not too late to get my name on that wall, and say 'in sickness and in health' to you."

He stopped a step short of the two of them touching; too close to be confused for anything but an invitation, eyes never leaving Harvey's for a second, except to drop to Harvey's lips and dart back. 

"It can never be too late, as far as I'm concerned," Harvey reached in half an inch closer; tilted his own head in acceptance of the invitation. "You can always come back to...."

Mike kissed him first, and Harvey let him; a press of lips and then another, opening up when Mike asked it with a flick of his tongue and a contented humming and... how had they come so close to never having this?

"Lunch?" Mike pulled away too soon, but probably for the best considering their location and the way the building always started filling up right about now. "Your place?"

"Hell, yes," Harvey watched him walk back to the desk. "Mike..."

"Yeah?"

"When did you decide to come back?"

"When you called me a few weeks ago. I had been so down, you know? When you told me to leave you behind, even though you still needed me and even though I was so unhappy. I thought you might never really forgive me for leaving. But then… you said 'come home' and I got it: You hadn’t wanted to sway me, or prompt my decision. But you did want me, still. That’s when I knew... I would."

-*-

Harvey had feared that if Mike ever stepped in his place again, it'd be under very different circumstances; visiting with the kids, maybe, or divorced with some new person on his arm.

He liked this better. The two of them barely waiting until his door was closed to be kissing again; jackets open, shirts and at least one zipper undone from the elevator ride, Mike sex-hazy and red-lipped, asking with wordless sounds for Harvey to go at him harder, deeper. 

"And I thought you might be...hesitant," Harvey pulled away, barely to say it. "....about this. With me."

The 'hell … no' Mike whispered into his ear was almost as delicious as the kiss.

"C'mon..." Mike pulled him toward the bedroom. "Um...wait."

"What?"

"One thing: I think we should keep ...us under wraps. For a few months. Until the divorce is done. Are you okay with that?"

"You and me keeping a secret of that magnitude?" Harvey threw him a squint. "How would that even work?"

-*-

They repeated lunch for dinner, and finally managed to actually get some food in them before crashing.

Then Harvey made good on his wish from the morning he woke up at St. Luke's; pulled a sleeping Mike into his arms - drifted off to the scent of him warm and heavy in his arms. 

Finally - for once, hope had come through. And Harvey felt one hundred percent better.


End file.
